Social Media Tacticshttps://arisblogbond.wordpress.com
#goswansThu, 24 May 2018 00:08:31 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://s0.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngSocial Media Tacticshttps://arisblogbond.wordpress.com
How Manchester United uses Twitterhttps://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/06/how-manchester-united-uses-twitter/
https://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/06/how-manchester-united-uses-twitter/#respondThu, 06 Aug 2015 11:27:44 +0000http://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/?p=30Continue Reading →]]>Manchester United due to its size and its connection with fans all around the globe has placed a rather larger importance with the social media platforms that it decides to use. Other than Facebook, Manchester United has used Twitter and Instagram to integrate with their fans as well as market their products and keep updates on team news and players. Manchester United’s Twitter page has 5.72 million followers with 16.2 thousand tweets. Much like Facebook, Manchester United uses Twitter to market their brands and products, connect with their fans and give constant updates on all club matter. Twitter gives everyone the power to create and share idea and information, instantly, without barriers. Of course, like with any successful business, you can’t just introduce a strategy by throwing lots of money at it, it needs to be well structured, managed and monitored. In relation to twitter, a good rule of thumb is that 80% of your tweets should focus on driving interactions with followers. These include Retweets, replies, and favorites. Its after this and a connection has been established that you can mix in direct offers and promotions that get followers more involved such as buying products and services. This is very evident with Manchester United and its use of Twitter as a social media platform and powerful business tool. The club has been able to establish a very good connection with its followers all around the world, and because of this has the luxury of offering promotions and merchandise to sell to their fans. This is a clear illustration of how Manchester United uses social media to make the club more successful and maintain a sustainable level of growth. Another social media platform that Manchester United has incorporated into its business strategy and that has contributed to sustained level of growth in recent years is Instagram. Manchester United has 5.2 million follows on its Instagram account, with 2942 posts. “As visual content becomes more popular on social media, it also becomes increasingly important for brands to create and leverage. This shift to visual social media means that more and more businesses, big and small, are starting to communicate visually with their fans, followers and customers” (Istvanova, L). Instagram has been the last step in terms of social media platforms introduced as business tools for companies. However, it has been established as very useful and effective due to its very easy and mobile nature, as well as the images being easy to process and therefore attracting an even wider fan base. Instagram has even be considered to have taken over Facebook and Twitter in terms of its usefulness for marketing brands, due to posts being able to be seen more easily than the other platforms, that don’t always pop up for followers to see. Manchester United has used this source very well, and has allowed the club to tap almost every possible social media platform in a way that greatly benefits them. As such as large and global brand, all these social media platforms have been crucial to the continuing expansion of the richest sporting club in the world. https://twitter.com/manutd

]]>https://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/06/how-manchester-united-uses-twitter/feed/0jamesaris93Man utd twitterHow Manchester United use social media to promote the clubhttps://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/06/how-manchester-united-use-social-media-to-promote-the-club/
https://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/06/how-manchester-united-use-social-media-to-promote-the-club/#respondThu, 06 Aug 2015 11:15:21 +0000http://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/?p=27Continue Reading →]]>In my previous blogs I discussed how the Sydney Swans AFL Club uses social media to promote themselves with fans and members around Australia. The club used a variety of social media platforms to do so, which helped market their brand as well as attract more supporters on a national level. In this blog I am going to use a more global example and how social media has been used at a professional level. The example I am going to use is the Manchester United Football Club. I have used this club and brand because it is the richest club in the world, and also has the highest support base with followers in countries from all parts of the globe. A good indication of this is on the club website that is in 7 different language to facilitate supporters from different parts of the world. As this is the case, social media platforms have become extremely important for Manchester United as they try and reach out to those from, all over the world, providing them with team news, events, scores, player profiles, etc. On top of staying connected with their fan base, social media platforms have also been used to help market their products and merchandise, which are of the highest demand. Manchester United, much like many other sporting teams, uses social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. With these platforms a lot of the information is linked back to the clubs website. The Facebook page has over 65 million followers, illustrating how big the club really is. With the club having so many global sponsors, and trying to reach such a large and diverse fan base globally, Facebook has become a very important part of the clubs promotional tools. It is able to market through Facebook its different sponsors by showing adds, as well as selling merchandise and updating followers with team news – which occurs all year around due to player trades and new sponsors and International events. More so than for the Sydney Swans AFL club, Manchester United relies on social media platforms like Facebook to be able to interact with their global fan base, and it is the best way for them to do so in a manner that is familiar to so many people and that is easy and efficient. Also it allows fans to interact with each other on a more personal level and with the players as well. However, in relation to this other social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram are generally more effective in this regard. An example of a post on the Manchester United Facebook page is where the club shared one of the main sponsors – Chevrolet, who had made an ad with a supporter who was one the clubs 2015 ‘Chevrolet Mascots”. The ad is about a young girl, Alexi, who loves football and learnt the game form her father. The ad reveals how Alexi has been given the chance to take a trip to Old Trafford – home of Manchester United, and meet all the other mascots as well. This promotional video through Facebook has offered some many benefits for the club. Firstly, it has promoted one of their major brands, Chevrolet. Secondly, it has established a connection with their supporter base; especially young kids who now get the opportunity to go to the ground and be apart of the team. This connection is seen on a global level and as well as promotes the club creates another level of excitement for fans to get involved in the club and meet some of their heroes. https://www.facebook.com/ChevroletFC/videos/622119264595771/
]]>https://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/06/how-manchester-united-use-social-media-to-promote-the-club/feed/0jamesaris93man utdHow the Sydney Swans use Instagramhttps://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/05/how-the-sydney-swans-use-instagram/
https://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/05/how-the-sydney-swans-use-instagram/#respondWed, 05 Aug 2015 12:04:23 +0000http://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/?p=24Continue Reading →]]>In my previous blogs I looked at how the Sydney Swans Football Club used social media platforms Facebook and Twitter to help promote the club to their fans and members. It is a very effective tool in doing so, helping connect fans with the club as well as their favorite players. Another social media platform that has become very effective and useful in recent times is Instagram. Instagram is a free smartphone app used to capture and share the world’s moments. Instagram is fast and fun way to share pictures and videos with friends, fans or customers. This is of course depending on the profile of the Instagram which can just be someone’s own personal account, or a business or brand trying to market their product. Those that use Instagram can create posts daily, as well as like and comment on posts. The main difference with Instagram is that mobile is the core, and you can only create a post on your phone and not on your desktop. The point of it is that its mobile and you can show whatever you want everyday no matter where you are. However, unlike Facebook and Twitter, Instagram is not link heavy and you can only have an active link in your bio. This means you have to sell what you are doing within the image, which the many different custom types and designs in Instagram come so important. Instagram encourages users to stay within Instagram, rather than leave to learn more about a product or location. Instagram is great for showing a moment or a snapshot. This is where its use for the Sydney Swans is so useful. As a professional AFL team, players and coaches are continuously on the road and close access to training and the players is generally quite restricted. Instagram has allowed the club to post images of the team and players and away games, with constant updated on scores on game day, as well as photos in the change rooms before and after game. This continual match day experience has never been seen before, and the flexibility of Instagram has allowed very easy access for fans to see and be updated on everything happening at the Sydney Swans. In recent times there has been a big shift towards visual content as 80% of the brain is dedicated to visual procession. This makes it far more appealing to fans. Another dimension to Instagram very similar to Facebook and especially Twitter is players having their own accounts and posting their own images and content. This gives insight to what the players do outside of football in their personal lives and creates a connection with fans that can see what they might be like in real life, as well as comment and like posts. https://instagram.com/p/55w7PWTAVS/?taken-by=sydneyswans

]]>https://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/05/how-the-sydney-swans-use-instagram/feed/0jamesaris93syd instaPMHow the Sydney Swans use Twitterhttps://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/05/sydney-swans-twitter/
https://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/05/sydney-swans-twitter/#respondWed, 05 Aug 2015 11:59:00 +0000http://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/?p=20Continue Reading →]]>In my last blog I went into detail about how Facebook is used as a social media platform to promote the Sydney Swans Football Club. It is without a doubt the most used social media platform and has the most amount of reach with its fans and has allowed the club to connect with them in the most effective way to promote their brand. Over the last few years other social media platforms have been created and although different in nature are also very effective in helping promote the Sydney Swans Football Club. One of these new social media platforms is Twitter. Twitter’s mission is “to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information, instantly, without barriers”. There are around “500 million tweets per day, with 300 million active users, over 35 languages and 80% of Twitter users login via their mobile devices” (https://about.twitter.com). Now even though these are not quite the same numbers as Facebook, Twitter is different in the way it allows the club to interact with their fans and help promote the club. A tweet is a message posted on Twitter, consisting of 140 characters or less. It can contain text, photos, links and videos. However, it is “important to note that whatever you include any of these things they will be counted as a link and automatically take up 22 characters”. On Twitter anyone can reply to a tweet. This is what makes Twitter different to a certain extent to Facebook. Twitter is much more personable, and individual players will tweet their own thoughts and opinions and fans as well as the general public have the opportunity to reply. This enables fans to connect and even have conversations with their favourite players. Also, very similar to the Facebook page, the Sydney Swans post comments and photos that link to the Swans website with full articles of news and results that may have occurred. On top of this, on Twitter people can Retweet – “this is where you choose a tweet from someone else and Tweet it to your own followers”. Other things that can be done on Twitter include adding favourites, which demonstrates an acknowledgement or appreciation of a page – this is very good for the Swans page as demonstrates the amount of followers and interest in what has been tweeted. Hashtags and mentions are also used that organise tweets easier, again a great tool for the Swans (#goswans) to promote the club so fans know where they are going and what they can see. The best types of tweets for the Swans to use to build follower loyalty and help grow memberships are through promotions. A good promotion that the club has done through Twitter is the discounting of tickets. An example of this was family day where families could bring their kids and kids would get in for free. This just demonstrated a very family friendly environment which is very attractive for an AFL club, as well as getting more people down to enjoy the football which will in turn increase membership numbers. The Swans also Tweet behind the scenes- these include photos at training and in the change rooms, which just adds an extra dimension to the player experience and gets fans closer to see what its like and what the players and coaches go through.
]]>https://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/05/sydney-swans-twitter/feed/0jamesaris93Sydney swans twitterHow the Sydney Swans Football Club uses Facebook.https://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/04/how-the-sydney-swans-football-club-uses-facebook/
https://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/04/how-the-sydney-swans-football-club-uses-facebook/#respondTue, 04 Aug 2015 06:26:48 +0000http://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/?p=16Continue Reading →]]>In my first blog I talked about all the different social media platforms that the Sydney Swans Football Club used to promote themselves to their members, fans and the general public. The main reason for these was to keep the fans updated with current news, scores, teams, events, etc. However, in my first blog I only briefly touched on how these social media platforms promote the club and help it grow at a sustainable level. Over the next few blogs I will go into a much deeper analysis on these social media platforms on a singular level using examples to clearly demonstrate how the Sydney Swans uses them to promote the club. In this blog I will be investigating how Facebook is used to promote the club and how effective it has been in doing so. To illustrate how massive and useful Facebook can be in promoting businesses such as the Sydney Swans Football Club, 936 million users access Facebook every day while 798 million users access Facebook every day on their mobile. In Australia alone over 14 million people use Facebook on a regular basis. In my next few blogs I will go into more detail on how other social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and YouTube are used to help promote the club with their members and fans. But just to give an ideas how big Facebook is and how widely used it is in Australia as a whole compared to these other social media platforms – 93% of Australian’s use Facebook for social networking, this is compared to 26% for Instagram and 17% for Twitter. This again demonstrating how useful Facebook is as a social media platform just purely based on the amount of users, which gives the Sydney Swans the most amount of coverage to its fans. Also to add to this Facebook has connections to the club’s website, Twitter and Instagram making it the most important social media platform for any business to promote themselves to the general public and to allow for the most amount of expansion. A page on Facebook is essentially the official profiles of brands. The best aspect of Facebook is the reach it gets to its target audience; this is the number of unique people who see the post. With over 230,000 people that have liked the Sydney Swans Facebook page, as well as the 40,000 actual club members. The page allows fans to get constant updates on news, events, scores and player profiles – constantly promoting the club. As the club is based out of Sydney it is more than likely many of the Facebook page followers are somehow connected, and this increases the amount of impressions which then means more people are seeing the post and getting updates on anything that involves the Sydney Swans. An example of a post on the Sydney Swans Facebook page was yesterday after they played a game, “It was a special night at the SCG as we put on a strong performance to overrun the Crows by 52 points”. This is then linked to the Swans website for a full game analysis for followers to read as well as highlights and interviews and players. Again reaching to as many followers as possible and giving fans the opportunity for a full insight into the clubs news and helping promote the brand. http://www.sydneyswans.com.au/news/2015-08-01/swans-surge-at-the-scg
]]>https://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/04/how-the-sydney-swans-football-club-uses-facebook/feed/0jamesaris93sydney fbHow the Sydney Swans use social media to promote the clubhttps://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/03/how-the-sydney-swans-use-social-media-to-promote-the-club/
https://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/2015/08/03/how-the-sydney-swans-use-social-media-to-promote-the-club/#respondMon, 03 Aug 2015 11:08:30 +0000http://arisblogbond.wordpress.com/?p=11Continue Reading →]]>#goswans

The Sydney Swans Football Club are an AFL team originally established in South Melbourne back in 1874 before moving up to Sydney in 1982. The club just recently reached over 40,000 members, which is a new record. To keep all the clubs members, as well as other fans around Australia and the world, the Sydney Swans has set up several different social media platforms to better connect with their fans. This enables them to continually post and keep their fans updated with team news, player changes, membership updates, contact details, events, etc. As a start, the Sydney Swans have their own website with all the latest team news, events, statistics, membership details, etc. To get everything the Swans website is the best place for members and fans to get the information they are after. This again helps them connect with their fans as well as promote the club as to gain more membership and support, which all leads to continual sustained growth for the club that is essential to be successful. Over the last few years, the Sydney Swans have introduced several new social media platforms to connect with their fans, which have also added an extra element to the fan experience as players can now write personal messages and opinions and post their photos and videos. The first of these social media platforms is Facebook, which is actually connected to the club website. So any articles or news updates regarding the club are posted on Facebook and are just linked back to the website page. Some players also have personalized accounts that they can post their own opinions and photos. This has created a more personable connection between players and fans that has not ever been seen before, and is clearly illustrated with the constant growth in membership figures not just for the club but the AFL as a whole. However, Facebook as a social media platform is the most limited in terms of the player and fans relationship, with Twitter and Instagram being the most used for personal use of players. Twitter is used to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information, instantly, without barriers. It is used both by the club that posts statuses and updates of club news and events. But also players on an individual level post their own opinions and thoughts on it. This is also the same for Instagram where both the club and players individually can post photos and comments for the fans and general public to see. This again is just a very easy and simplistic way for the club to keep fans updated with the latest news and events. It also means they get a greater insight to the lives of their favorite players, and get to know their own thoughts and perspectives and it takes fans closer to the game than ever before. This greater fan experience is very attractive to the general public and has seen over the last few years constant growth in membership and has created a whole new point of view in the game of AFL. This all further demonstrating how the Sydney Swans football club uses social media to promote and grow the club.